Vlll PREFACE. 



In presenting this volume, a chief aim of the author was 

 so to combine the Manual with the Reckoner, as to furnish 

 the inquirer, in brief, with all the necessary rules and data 

 and the elementary facts and axioms relating to almost every 

 branch of industrial science, and particularly that of agri- 

 culture, and, at the same time, whenever it was possible, to 

 compute and tabulate the results for him in the same con- 

 nection. Hence he will find in the ensuing pages the axio- 

 matical or elementary propositions, the data, the standards, 

 the units, &c., of almost every useful and practical art with 

 which the farmer may have to deal, clearly stated, together 

 with their simplest rules, illustrated by examples and solu- 

 tions, and, wherever it was practicable, the arithmetical re- 

 sults calculated and tabularized. 



Those who consult this book must remember that it is 

 not a work of recipes, prescriptions, or of directions and 

 advice as to the best mode of conducting any or all the 

 various operations pertaining to agriculture, &c. But they 

 will bear in mind that the subjects of which this book treats 

 are, for the most part, facts and figures assured analyses 

 and demonstrations about which there can be no dispute. 

 The design was to produce a work of substantial and endur- 

 ing value, and of universal application and use something 

 in the sphere of agriculture corresponding to Haswell in 

 Engineering, or Fairbairn in Mechanics. How far the 

 author's labors have tended to that end remains to be tested 

 by experience. He is sanguine of their ultimate fruition. 



So vast is the domain of agriculture, that there are few 

 of the mechanic arts of which the farmer does not require 

 some information, and which he is often compelled to seek 

 through many books and journals. He is, in a certain sense, 

 encyclopediac in his science and use. Hence many subjects 



